4. What do you think Nintendo’s chances are of creating a ‘blue ocean’ come-back with their Switch? When Nintendo Wii was launched in 2006, very few analysts would have predicted that Nintendo Wii would one day be market leader in the games console market against the established PlayStation 3 (PS3) and Xbox 360 brands. But analysts can be wrong: in the week ending 23 August 2007 www.Vgchartz.com data, which is based on sample data from retailers all over the world, indicated that Nintendo’s Wii (which was released in November 2006 – one year after the Xbox 360) had passed the Xbox 360’s lifetime unit sales, making Nintendo the new world market leader in both the games and console businesses.

This had a big impact on third party publishers and also influenced the decisions that the three major players

(Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo) would make in the future.

One factor that no doubt helped Nintendo’s Wii to grow so quickly was the console’s broad appeal across all age groups, demographics, and countries. However, Nintendo’s first place in the world market came under massive attack from both Sony and Microsoft’s new sensing devices (see below).

The big question is now – has the new Nintendo Switch the ability to repeat the ‘Blue Ocean’ strategy from 2006?